Preparing Horizon Europe proposals in LaTeX with heria
Tristan Miller · TUGboat · 2024
T E X has lasted longer than many other computer software technologies.This article reviews some of the history of T E X and METAFONT, how they have come to be used in practice, and what their impact has been on document markup, the Internet, and publishing.T E X has several design deficiencies that limit its use and its audience.We look at what T E X did right, and with 25 years of hindsight, what it did wrong.We close with some observations about the challenges ahead for electronic representation of documents.Summary 1 Some historical highlights 2 What we've accomplished 2.1 Books and journals 2.2 Software archives 2.3 Document archives 2.4 Bibliography archives Nelson H. F. Beebe 4.24 No absolute page positioning 4.25 No grid typesetting 4.26 No comments in DVI files 4.27 No rotated material 5 What did METAFONT do right?5.1 Open software 5.2 Font-design kernel 5.3 Programming language 5.4 'Meta' fonts 5.5 Shaped pens 5.6 Open font formats 6 What did METAFONT do wrong?6.1 Bitmap output premature 6.2 Pen shapes 6.3 Curve representations 6.4 Inadequate I/O 6.5 Font sizes 6.6 Inflexible character numbering 6.7Not adopted by font designers 7 Future directions 7.1 XML directions 7.2 Unicode directions Foreword Some of the material in this article may seem old hat to veteran T E X users, but I am writing it with the intention that it can also be read by people who are unfamiliar with T E X and METAFONT, but are nevertheless interested in learning something about the design and history of those programs.